Shooting
On September 15, 2001, the 42-year old Roque took his Chevrolet S-10 from the Wild Hare sports bar in Mesa where he had reportedly been ranting about immigrants, and drove to the Chevron gas station owned by Balbir Singh Sodhi, who had emigrated from India in 1989. Roque shot Sodhi five times from his truck with a .380 handgun, killing him as Sodhi was helping landscaper Luis Ledesma plant flowers around the edge of his gas station.
Roque, who apparently wanted revenge for September 11, mistook him for an Arab because of the clothes he wore, his turban, and his beard. Roque then drove to a Mobil gas station 10 miles away. Twenty minutes after the first shooting, he shot at a Lebanese-American clerk from his truck, but missed. Roque then drove to his former residence which had been purchased by a local Afghan family and fired multiple rounds at the outside of the house. After fleeing from the final shooting, Roque was reported to have gone to a local bar and boasted that "They're investigating the murder of a turban-head down the street."
Within 25 minutes of Sodhi's death, the Phoenix police reported four further attacks on people who either were Middle Easterners or who dressed with clothes thought to be worn by Middle Easterners.
Read more about this topic: Murder Of Balbir Singh Sodhi
Famous quotes containing the word shooting:
“My time has come.
There are twenty people in my belly,
there is a magnitude of wings,
there are forty eyes shooting like arrows,
and they will all be born.
All be born in the yellow wind.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee,
The shooting stars attend thee;”
—Robert Herrick (1591–1674)